The amazing artist
Diane Goldie spent two months painting and sewing, putting together an exhibition of portraits of creative people wearing her wearable art at the Resistance Gallery. The impulse of this event was the rip off of
Diane Goldie's design by Gucci and the reclaim of her aesthetic by a celebration of the london tribe and individualism.
There was a very new punk & anarchist energy emerging for the whole exhibition, but far from a nihilist reaction to a hard blow, it was a vey creative response, a strong desire for an alternative way to consume and make art.
"London is a place of individuality , creativity and style. It's also a place where outsiders can find their kin. Our tribe of beautiful weirdos , gorgeous freaks, creative creatures are supported and celebrated in this beautiful city of ours. Our creativity has been noticed and influenced the likes of Gucci just last season. Let's celebrate this! This is an exhibition of these stylish people, paintings, clothes, art and performance in all its forms. Come all you outsiders, let's celebrate our diversity together , post Brexit , in a London that refuses to conform." Diane Goldie
Fuck fashion manifesto by Diane Goldie
"Clothes should be made and marketed to all humans, of all shapes, sizes , ages, races, abilities and sexes. All humans have a basic need to feel good in what they are wearing and that should be acknowledged.
There is no one fixed standard of beauty , beauty comes from inner confidence and authenticity. That is all.
We shall not use manipulation to make consumers feel inadequate in order to sell them the idea of a solution. (it’s never a real solution). We believe that helping people feel good is a much better way of promoting sales.
Models should be encouraged to smile and dance and laugh . We want to see people enjoying their clothes.
Models are to be all humans, reflecting the natural diversity of the population. This should never be done in a tokenistic way.
Trends are to be exposed for what they are: a trick to encourage constant turn over of capital. Style (finding a personal way of dressing that suits the individual) should replace trends."
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| Beautiful sketch by Sue Harding capturing the atmosphere of the catwalk preparation, I am putting my butterfly on my face (sounds quite surrealistic ou of context) |
Because everything was permitted, I decided to break codes of the traditional fashion catwalk by introducing some performative elements to the actual show.
I was happily surprised how all my beautiful models got really involved into the project, all being very professional and dedicated.
I wasn't presenting a spring summer collection, a trend that will be outdated in six months but a repertoire of costumes that have each their own stories and contains their own world in themselves.
For the peacock dress, the silver base of the dress was generously given to me by Diane Goldie herself after buying it at Spitafields market. The peacock is from a hand-woven bedspread I found in my grandmother closet that my great-grandfather brought back from a trip to China in the 1920's. The piece is a 100 years old so I have to give it justice and not mess up the dress.
I carefully cut out the peacock, stitched it on the base and adorned the contour with sequins to hide the seems. it may not be the most spectacular piece of the catwalk but paradoxically it is the one that took the most time as it took a whole week to sequins the peacock.
I styled the dress with my peacock turban which is the headpiece I am wearing on my portrait by Diane Goldie and asked Florent Bidois to wear it as it has quite a straight cut. With the sparkly make up Steffy Shaw make up he turned itself into a peacock Maharaja.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
I got theses primary colours goggly eyes from a project i did in July with
Unattended Items for a kawaii festival. They are in Korean folk tradition some prop that you put on fingers to tell people's fortune.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
For my greatest happiness, I was allowed to keep them and to turn them into a 90s style kawaii dress! I straight away thought about Loulou Reloulou to wear it, as it fit her acid colours style. She brilliantly styled it with some yellow tights and purple wig! perfect in the comic stripes toilets.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
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| by Anthony Lycett |
The gold and black tinsels dress that I wore on Brighton beach have an amazing floaty movement when you blow air in it. So I got two big piece of cardboard that I found in the street and I wrote "Fuck" and fashion on it" to create a "giant fan" effect.
I love when a garment becomes evolutive and react to its environment. I need someone with an aristocratic bearing that I found in the person of Karo Yosifova.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
My kawaii kimono is one my most sophisticated and elaborated pieces I made. Emblematic of my aesthetic, I presented it at many shows like Brighton fashion week, Shorditch colours bombing walk, my solo exhibition in Paris, but I never get tired of it!
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| by Anthony Lycett |
And this time I decided to style it with a new clicking cameras neckpiece and dragon headpiece. I found theses colourful clicking cameras at Poundstar in Hackney central and stitched on a furry base, the perfect paparazzi necklace!
I met
Claire Shanley few days ago at an extra jobs and her enthusiasm about the project was amazing, she looked mesmerising with
Steffy Shaw Kapop geisha make up!
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| by Anthony Lycett |
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| by Anthony Lycett |
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| by Anthony Lycett |
The superwoman couture dress come from an admiration for this powerful shero and the observation that she doesn't owns a evening wear . As a feminine feminist I decided to created for her a long dress version of her famous cartoons costume adorned with sequins and sparky rhinestones. I
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| by Anthony Lycett |
used the base of a part shop costume that a friend gave me and sited in my wardrobe for 2 years. With the great Lichtenstein pop art make up by
Steffy Shaw Bryony Ellis is wearing her own footwear specially created for the event!
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| by Anthony Lycett |
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| by Anthony Lycett |
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| by Anthony Lycett |
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| by Anthony Lycett |
Laetitia Nuss looked amazing in my mermaid costume, I was happy to gather people that I meet in different places and jobs and bring them together.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
When she offered to bring her twins i thought it was a brilliant ideas. That gave me the opportunity to create a little theatrical "tableau vivant" with the little girl and little girls dressed as sailor blowing bubbles.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
Two of my models would wave a blue fabric to represent the sea. In this way, I could create a remembrance of children games where you use to sheets to built sheds and chairs to ride as an imaginary horse! I liked the idea of having children on stage to convey the message I could create a costumes for everybody, the young and the less young, a trans-generational fashion.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
I found theses fried eggs squeaky toys in pound world. I think it was some very well spend 6 pounds! I stitched them on a latex dress because I am an egg fetish! I love eggs, I could eat eggs at every meals, boiled, scrambled, fried, soft-boiled eggs…
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| by Anthony Lycett |
I was very lucky with the egg dress. I had a drop out by a model on the day, but I have the very talented
Marnie Scarlet, awards winning performer, who was modelling for Diane Goldie, who got her eyes caught by the dress on the hanger and accepted to jump in it and improvised an incredible show on the spot wittily playing with her frying pan accessories! Sometimes the most unexpected things are the best!
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| by Anthony Lycett |
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| by Anthony Lycett |
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| by Anthony Lycett |
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| The eggs dress was also borrowed by Amy Redmond for Miss Sink the PInk party, two iconic woman have been wearing this dress! |
I have been lucky that Marnie Scarlett wanted to borrow the egg dress for a very playful photoshoot with a very talented photographer
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| by Anthony Lycett |
I originally made the pencil dress for the "back to school" themed bingo at
Number90. Following my favourite aesthetic of accumulation, the more, the merrier, I ordered some pencils online and got lots of boxes à pound land. In the queue an old Cockney guy found it funny to say "you are not going to run out of colours"… If only he knew…
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| by Anthony Lycett |
In total I collected 1080 pencils, Then the hard work starts, drilling holes in every single pencils with a precision drill to stitch them one by one of a pink dress which I modify the structure with some foam pads.I also made a pencils sharpener necklace to complete the outfit. I asked
Steffy Shaw to make this pencils sharpeners make up gluing on the face colourful shavings on the beautiful face of my very talented assistant
Maggie Campbell.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
Shoot in the scottish mountains, I turned my butterfly dress into a performative and participative piece where people could add the 5D butterflies on the rings of the dress, being part and parcel of the creative process! Whereas designers often create a clear separation between the models put on a pedestal and the audience.
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| by Anthony Lycett |
